They were ruined,--but they accepted their common fate with a certain
Indian stoicism and Western sense of humor that for the time lifted
them above the vulgar complacency of their former fortunes. There was a
deep-seated, if coarse and irreverent resignation in their philosophy.
At the beginning of the calamity it had been roughly formulated by
Billings in the statement that "it wasn't anybody's fault; there was
nobody to kill, and what couldn't be reached by a Vigilance Committee
there was no use resolootin' over." When the Reverend Doctor Pilsbury
had suggested an appeal to a Higher Power, Peters had replied, good
humoredly, that "a Creator who could fool around with them in that style
was above being interfered with by prayer." At first the calamity had
been a thing to fight against; then it became a practical joke, the
sting of which was lost in the victims' power of endurance and assumed
ignorance of its purport. There was something almost pathetic in their
attempts to understand its peculiar humor.
"How about that Europ-e-an trip o' yours, Peters?" said Billings,
meditatively, from the depths of his chair. "Looks as if those
Crowned Heads over there would have to wait till the water goes down
considerable afore you kin trot out your wife and darters before 'em!"
"Yes," said Peters, "it rather pints that way; and ez far ez I kin see,
Mame Billings ain't goin' to no Saratoga, neither, this year.
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